The November Man (FILM REVIEW)
The November Man
Film
Review by Kam Williams
It’s Spy vs. Spy in Labyrinthine Espionage Thriller
Director Roger Donaldson is probably most closely associated with No
Way Out, one of the best espionage thrillers ever made. The
accomplished Australian revisits the genre with The
November Man, though this picture pales in comparison to his ingenious, 1987
classic.
Nevertheless,
Roger has crafted another labyrinthine, cat-and-mouse caper which miraculously
manages to keep you on the edge of your seat despite an often-incoherent plotline,
slapdash action sequences, and an inscrutable cast of characters with difficult
to discern motivations. Overall, the adventure amounts to a dizzying
head-scratcher which takes you on one helluva roller coaster ride, even if it might
take a scorecard to keep the profusion of players straight.
Based on
the Bill Granger best seller “There Are No Spies,” the movie stars Pierce
Brosnan in the title role as Peter Devereaux, an ex-CIA Agent once code named “The
November Man.” While he retired to Switzerland five years ago, it
doesn’t take much to coax him out of the rocking chair to help extract Natalia (Mediha
Musliovic), a Russian double agent ready to come in out of the proverbial cold.
After
all, they share a secret past which produced Lucy (Tara Jevrosimovic), a love
child he misses terribly. However, the prospects of a father-daughter reunion
are reduced significantly when Natalia is shot in the head by a team of assassins
led by David Mason (Luke Bracey), Peter’s former protégé in the CIA.
What’s up
with that? Did the Agency really want Natalia dead? Or did David go rogue? These
are the questions left unanswered as Peter accepts another dangerous assignment,
namely, the exfiltration from Moscow of Alice Fournier (Olga Kurylenko).
Alice
is a pivotal witness for the prosecution set to testify in front of a war
crimes tribunal about all the atrocities committed in Chechnya by
Arkady Federov (Lazar Ristovski). Trouble is Federov is Russia’s ruthless President-elect
and isn’t about to let some social worker abort his rendezvous with destiny.
So, it’s not long after
making Alice’s
acquaintance that Peter realizes she has no shortage of angry adversaries, both
Soviet, such as Federov’s acrobatic henchwoman (Amila Terzimehic), and
American, like the CIA mole giving David his marching orders. Regardless, the
peripatetic pair proceed to leave a messy trail of bloody bodies behind as they
pick up long-lost Lucy before making a daring escape to the West.
Vintage Brosnan!
Very Good
(2.5 stars)
Rated
R for rape, profanity, sexuality, nudity, graphic violence and brief drug use
In English and Russian with subtitles
Running time: 108
minutes
Distributor: Relativity
Media
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